On Sunday Stacey and I traveled to Clarkston for what was supposed to be a four hour ride. I selected Clarkston for the ride because it's pretty close, yet appeared to be far enough away from suburbia that we'd use mostly country roads. I found a route from mapmyride.com that was recommended by the local cycling group. The day got off to a promising start as the weather was fairly nice and Clarkston appeared to be a nice town on our drive in. However, after leaving downtown, we traveled along a two lane road with no shoulder and a 50 mph speed limit. This wouldn't have been too bad, except there was a steady flow of traffic. After making our first turn, traffic got a bit better for a few miles, then picked right back up. As we approached our third turn, about an hour into the ride, we noticed that it too was going to be onto a road with a high speed limit, no shoulder, and too much traffic. Okay, I though, I'll just find a side street and we will abandon the planned route. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no network of paved country roads in the Clarkston area. Instead, every side street was a dirt road. Stacey and I road back through town to try to head in another direction, but the roads were exactly the same. After 3:30, Stacey was getting exhausted, and I was frusterated and not enjoying the ride. So, we stopped the ride 30 minutes short. My average HR wasn't that high (though I haven't looked at it) because I had to turn around for Stacey often. Still, I was able to spend a lot of time in the range of 135-140 bpm, and I tried to keep my cadence lower than normal. By the end of the ride, 135 bpm felt fairly tough, but I could have kept going. I remember feeling exhausted on rides over 3 hours at this time last year, so things are comparing favorably.
After the ride we headed to the pool for a quick 3500m. I felt surprising strong despite the ride and Saturday's workouts.
On Monday the weather was once again nice so I headed out for a 1:15 ride and 30 minute run. I pushed it a bit during the ride, spending a lot of time between 145 and 150 bpm (even accidentally hitting 160 bpm when trying to pass a mine-field-esque pot-holed section of road before a car approaching from behind would force me to the shoulder where I'd encounter the pot holes). The run felt great. I tried a new pair of shoes and think they're the best I've tried.
Once again, it's sunny and warm today (almost 70!) so I'm going to head out for a low-effort run, maybe 1:00 to 1:30. If I can get in an hour and a half of work, I'll head to the pool for a swim, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment